


Warm Future

by Deriliarch



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Established Relationship, F/M, Fluff, Post pregnancy freak out
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-13
Updated: 2018-04-13
Packaged: 2019-04-22 06:16:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 819
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14302626
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Deriliarch/pseuds/Deriliarch
Summary: Remus is sleepy. Tonks is sleeping. Remus watches her fondly, reflects on when she refused to let him put himself down.





	Warm Future

**Author's Note:**

> What is that summary, I wrote it 9 different times, I'm so done with it.

Remus awoke, as he often did, with his feet freezing. Suppressing a sleepy grumble, he rolled over and tucked them up under the legs of the reason for this morning ritual, his wife, who slept as if she was caught in a tornado, perpetually spinning until most of the blankets tangled around her like a spool of string. Her head–topped with wild tangerine curls–was flung back against the pillows, her arms stretched one above her head and the other somehow underneath her. Both her legs were on his side of the bed, through some sort of magic only she owned, though it suited his warming purposes just fine. And peeking through the twisted pile of quilt and sheet was her big belly, sans nightshirt as it was lost somewhere in the chaos of comfort. He squashed the wild rise of panic, of guilt, of shame, and–somehow even more agonizing– of hope. He had done that, given in and run but he knew better, now. He knew he would not, could not WOULD not lose this again to something so ugly as fear, no matter how much churned in his gut like acid. 

Tonks heaved a single, snorting snore and flopped toward him, half on his pillow already and went silent again. Her curls unwound and relaxed as she did, trailing across her face. A smile crept across his face as he reached out to brush them away and loosen the sheet that was threatening to strangle her. No, never again. She didn’t deserve rejection and cowardice; of anyone he knew, she deserved it least of all. 25 and full of choices, of possibilities and she had wanted him, had chosen him. He tried to remember what he had been doing when he was 25; being homeless, useless, and hungry, if he recalled correctly. No more war to give him purpose, no more Marauders to give him life he just…wandered. In the beginning of their relationship, as inexplicable it had seemed to him, he had tried to find them in her; James’s careless generosity, Sirius’s reckless, loving bravado, Peter’s wide and inclusive grins, Lily’s lightning fast wit. Could she fill a hole made by 4 people, he had wondered? Could she be what he had had?

No, he had found, because she didn’t need to be. Her smiles were different, her jokes, her giving, her gifts. She was a differently shaped peg for another place in him than they had been, and it had struck him how selfish he had been to not have realized that when he had asked what she saw in him. Instead of saying anything, she had looked at him and changed. He was first baffled; this face didn’t mean anything to him–a bright eyed man peering at him with quiet patience and a slight smile. And then he saw the scars, so less prominent and obvious than they were in his unconscious internal map of himself, the graying temples silvery and sleek, the face he shaved every morning looking slender and fine boned rather than gaunt and haggard. But what unnerved him, stopped his breath, his speech, his heart was the gentleness in her–his–eyes, the warmth. She made him look safe, look peaceful, look –

He had jerked to his feet, knocking his chair. His hands had raised, shaking–to ward her off? To cover his mouth? To touch her face? To negate and protest and correct, no that’s not me how have you got it so wrong why do you think there’s room for that inside me? He hadn’t known but had swallowed, hard and dry and managed a thick, “You…” before clamping down hard on his surreal panic and started again. “You have quite an imagination. But you need to work on your impressions.“ 

She had merely watched him, green eyes gentled more in sadness. “No. This is what I see.”

“Tonks…look–”

“No, Remus, YOU look.” She spoke not in his voice but not her own, some in between tenor. “Actually look. Don’t think, or argue, or,” she gave him a knowing look that boggled his mental equilibrium even more, “panic. You say you’re not the man you were, not young, not safe, not whatever adjective you like to pretend matters to me. But I didn’t know you before; I know you NOW. And this is what I see. What I know. I don’t pretend with you, ever. You shouldn’t have to, either. Tell ME straight, now. What do you see in me?“ 

And, God help him, the only thing that came to his mind and out of his mouth amid the storm of screaming thoughts was, “A future,” whispered, and he knew she knew it meant ‘everything’.

He still saw that future now, in his content sleepiness, in her face, in her growing belly, in her now groggy, squinting, green eyes. She blinked. 

She smiled.

**Author's Note:**

> Anonymous prompt was: 'Remus waking up earlier than Tonks and looking at her and thinking happily.'


End file.
